


Category Two

by CatRoofDance



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John can see dead people, M/M, Nightmares, Other, Post-Reichenbach, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatRoofDance/pseuds/CatRoofDance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Fall, John settles with a girl who's as dull and boring as the sauce boats she wants him to buy.<br/>But then John sees Sherlock in the crowd and the nightmares of Category Two return. Hallucination and reality get mixed up and he loses the ability to tell them apart.</p><p>He must solve the riddle Sherlock gave him in his dreams, or he will drown in his own insanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Category Two

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first Sherlock fanfiction. I wrote it as a birthday present for a friend of mine. 
> 
> Please enjoy this piece of darkness, blood and tea. And maybe you'll leave some nice words for me. I will take care of them.

**Category Two**

 

John breathes in. It is cold, no snow yet, but it already smells like it. Cool exhalations in front of his face, rising up between the buildings, mixing up with the crowds breathe in London City. The sky is grey-white, that’s what snow looks like before it falls. Out of a café behind him the smell of fresh black warm tea flows out on the streets, blends with the smell of winter. John really likes to have a tea right now.

Julie grabs his arm, drags him with her. The plastic bags which John is carrying rub against his trousers. He smiles, doesn’t fight against the pulling, follows the pointing fingers of Julie when she sees something in the shop window, and then he nods or shakes his head and says something. His leg hurts; it’s the cold, perhaps. But not that worse that he starts limping, still not that worse.

 

_____

 

The flat is on the sixth floor, there is no lift, and if there were one it would probably be very tight and making some strange noises going up and down the levels. Actually this is one of these London buildings that used to have elevators and sometimes John imagines that somewhere behind a secret door there is a lift that brings you up to a hidden flat.

Julie puts the kettle on; John brings the bags in their bedroom, puts the clothes in the wardrobe, strips of his beige jumper and dons a lighter shirt, the flat is warm, it’s always warm. It’s also small, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a tiny chamber where John managed to fit in his desk which disappears under patient files and radiographs. For local conditions the rent is low and with Julie working as a nurse again John considers moving to a bigger flat. He earns more money at the hospital now; a bigger flat would be nice.

Julie enters the bedroom, balancing two cuppas in her hands. She places them on the side table, then collapses on the high bed, sighing. She takes one of the cups, folds her hands around it, inhales the ascending warmth. “What a day”, she says, puts the cuppa back, leans forward and takes her socks of, kneads her feet. John gets the hint.

 

_____

 

Three nights a week John is home alone. No matter how often Julie and he are trying to adjust their shifts, it is always three nights.

London is noisy tonight, it whooshes and vibrates and screams. Police sirens howl, loud voices some streets further away, rattling. John leaves the window ajar, lets the heat drain outside. Julie loves the heat, but John likes to sleep in the cold. 18 degrees is the perfect sleep temperature, John read it in a medical journal. He likes it even colder, cool enough to shiver. Maybe he brought that with him from the war, nights in sandy tents, days in stuffy hideouts, the hot desert around him, bone-crushing. The chill is clear, lucent. It makes a room bigger around you and when you breathe in you can feel every molecule streaming in your lungs. You perceive the process of respiration. Sometimes it hurts.

John only dreams in the nights without Julie. His dreams can be divided into two categories. First. His “normal” nightmares. Sequences from war. A war he never fought like that. They always end with death, sometimes his own, mostly the death of others. Faceless people. The never ending battle. John tries to save them. Runs. Struggles. Arrives too late. His dreams are loud, fast, flickering. And he always loses.

John denies the second category. In fact he just had two dreams that would belong there. Both happened about three years ago. He remembers them well, each detail, each strange twist, each spoken word and gesture. He always forgets his nightmares a second after waking up, after the frightened awakening with a start. He knows what they are but not what exactly happened in them. He is just sure he lost. But for all that the second category is even more painful, and that’s why he denies it.

Second. Dreams about Sherlock.

 

_____ 

 

Baker Street. The sofa, files are scattered, each file detailed, pictures, notes, annotations made with a red marker in curved handwriting, the violin, the bow, so far apart from each other like they have been tossed.

Sherlock is sitting on the windowsill, the right one, books carelessly thrown to the floor, paper, his face averted. The sun is low, almost disappearing behind the building on the opposite; the incident sunlight makes the dust visible and enlarges Sherlocks shadow, it grows over the floor and up the wall. John is standing in the door case. Not moving.

“Three small scars just under the waistband”, Sherlock says to the window. “Chronic intestinal disease, most probably MC, impossible to say without the patient file, multiple surgeries, different doctors. Sleeves rolled up, he didn’t do that by himself, one side is rolled up a bit more, another person did this. Short finger nails, cut clean, well nail bed, soft skin. He usually doesn’t wear rings, therefore the ring is new. It is often detached and put in pockets and forgotten, although it is new it’s already scratched a lot.”

Sherlock deduces, interprets observations out of nowhere. He links them, each detail seamlessly follows the next, he explains theories, proves points, reveals secrets, comments accidents and finds the murderer. He never rests, he doesn’t breathe.

“Two children. Both girls, twins, teenagers. They like to change identities, the stepfather can’t tell them apart. The wife is a gardener.”

John is watching the dust floating down to the floor, rising up again, trundle through the air. Without moving his feet he suddenly gets closer to Sherlock, it’s like a zoom, a magnification of the scene. He’s standing right behind Sherlock by the window. Looks outside, the streets are empty, no cars, no humans. No lights in the windows of the building opposite, which lies in the shadows. The sun almost disappeared behind it. John puts his arm forth, his fingers floating above Sherlocks head, he tries to reach the glass but there is none. The window is just a hole in 221b through which the flat sucks in cold air.

“She used to be blonde, dyed her hair to obviate clichés, she doesn’t want to be judged because of her look. Three scratches on the upper arm, much too collateral to be a coincidence, therefore induced. The younger brother is our suspect.”

The voice, calm, deep, is vibrating. It expands, grows louder, floods the room along with the cold. It booms out of Sherlock, each new detail echoes through the space. John pulls his arms back, puts his hands over his ears, everything goes hollow, his ears are getting warm. Sherlock is still speaking but no words, just drone, hissing. John can’t see his face, only watches Sherlocks body move slightly while talking, his position unchanged, no gestures.

Suddenly all goes silent. Every move freezes. John lowers his arms, the room is chilly, it expands, filling up with white exhalation clouds. John breathes. Sherlock doesn’t.

Rising his arm again, John wants to touch Sherlocks shoulder, the tips of his fingers feel numb, he can’t feel the fabric of Sherlocks shirt.

Sherlock turns around; suddenly he points a gun at John, taking aim at an undefined spot between his eyes. John stares into the muzzle, and then down the arm that holds the weapon. Behind it there are Sherlocks eyes, ice in a white face. The pupils wide and black between crystalline irises.

“The details, John, I can see them all. Like small side notes. I read them all and put them together. I file them in an imaginary folder and access it when I need to. I delete objects in my head that are useless to make space for more important information. I can tell people things about them which even they themselves don’t know. I make conclusions, connect the dots and create a network. Nothing stays hidden for me, you know? It is all there, in front of me, I can see it all. I deduce and I am right. That’s how I work.”

No breaths from Sherlock, in front of John are still small white clouds. The chill is in every corner, freezes the room, frost crackles on the files and books and cushions and tea cups. John shivers. Sherlock opens his mouth again, lips curled, pale, slender bridge, glassy eyes above.

“Then how could I have missed that one detail?” he asks and he bends his finger and pulls the trigger and Johns knows the pain and he falls over and inversely Sherlock tilts backwards too, no window, no glass, he falls and disappears out of the hole in 221b Baker Street and leaves only the cold behind.

 

John doesn’t startle. He just opens his eyes and is awake. His finger tips are numb. It is five weeks after Sherlocks fall.

 

______  
  


John pulls the zipper of his coat up, right under his chin. He doesn’t wear scarves; he just pulls his jacket tighter and enwombs the body heat between skin and jumper. 

His shift was stressful. Saturdays are usually chaotic; today there was a car accident in the city centre. Ugly injuries, detached limbs, hysterical family members, far too many lost patients, too many decisions that can be made wrong. When John leaves the hospital it begins to snow.

Julie’s parents are going to visit them the next weekend. Strangely Julie is obsessed with the idea that they need a saucier. They always did without a saucier but suddenly they need one, badly. That’s why John fights his way though the City on a late Saturday afternoon, combs through hardware shops and has several unsatisfying conversations via the mobile with Julie who wants to choose the right saucier from the distance. Finally John decides on an artless model, white, neither flourish nor design nor engraving. Simple, uncomplicated. It won’t be improper, it won’t make any problems, in return it’s boring and dull. John often decides on dull.

The saleswoman takes ages to wrap the saucier in three layers of grey paper. When John leaves the shop the snow had become dirty and wet under the feet of hundreds of fast-paced people. But on some secret places the snow stayed white and mellow, on top of the street lights, between the branches of the few trees which loom osseous in the dark sky. On a distribution box a small amount of snow piled up, a boy snatches it up with gloved hands, forms the ice crystals to a ball. Before he can throw it, people dash in his sight field. John gets pushed forwards, he holds the bag with the saucier tight, relieved it has been wrapped in three layers. Humans simultaneously surge out of the shops, he becomes part of the stream, he just moves along and hopes he can escape into the next back street. Dark coats, furred jackets and colourful bonnets form a bulk, someone steps on his foot, an elbow pokes his rips, his coat cushions the blow, but it is still impolite. John turns around, wants to be outraged, changes his mind and wants to move his head back.

 He sees Sherlock for exactly three seconds. Like a constant in the flowing human mass his head protrudes from the crowd. His dark curls are a bit longer than in his memory, half profile, popped coat collar, looking down, most probably targeting his mobile phone, texting.

A man with a dark grey woollen cap pushes John forwards, mutters incomprehensible words of the kind you don’t have to understand because the sound itself says everything. John turns around, his face hot, the eyes wide open, the pulse in his throat, the saucier in his arms held even tighter. 300 feet later he manages to escape to a calm side street. Just once he looks around the corner back into the human mass, and of course he can’t see Sherlock any more.

 

_____

 

The room is square, not big, maybe four paces each side. In the middle of it, accurate to the millimeter, lays the victim. A young man with an absolutely unappealing face, featureless. Leaving the room you would forget about his look in a few seconds. His eyes are open, the pupils blunt. Around his head a pool of dark viscous liquid molded, coagulated blood trickles into the porous wooden floor.

John, right besides Sherlock, leans against the wall, stares at the dead body; just a few inches separate his foot from the hand of the victim. His eyes run over the body, he tries to memorize every detail, but the victim is dressed in insignificance, grey, no abnormalities, no characteristics. Each time he averts his gaze and looks back again he reckons the body is a different, a new one.

Sherlock is dressed in his coat although they’re inside a building, it isn’t cold at all. John is wearing the beige jumper. Their sleeves are touching.

“What are we doing here, Sherlock?” asks John, a classic out of his infinite question repertoire.

“It’s a crime scene, John. This is what we’re doing; we visit crime scenes and find the murderer.” Sherlock draws up his knees a bit, want to hug his legs. A light jolt goes through Johns left arm. He tears his eyes away from the corpse, instantly forgetting how it looked like, looks down his arm. Around his wrist swings the metal ring of a handcuff, already left an imprint, raw skin that glints red and burns. He is bound up to Sherlock who looks down at his own handcuffed wrist, also surprised.

“Interesting” he whispers, carefully lifting his right arm, pulling Johns with him, lowers it. No more questions from John.

The room got no windows, John suddenly realizes, the same is true for doors. He wonders how they even entered, looks back at the dead body. The coagulated blood still seeps down, the dark wooden floor tiles are already swollen up, can’t take any more blood; the fluid grows darker, and then gets more translucent. It springs out of the ground, soaks the body, the grey clothes, reaches Johns shoes, then his trousers, he feels the cold water on his skin, soon it covers the whole floor. It’s rising.

Again a jolt in Johns left arm, Sherlock latches on to the wall, pressing himself against it, John follows. The water rises silently. His ankles are getting cold. Although the fluid still isn’t high enough, the victim’s body sinks into the wet darkness. When the young man’s face vanishes under the surface it is like he never existed.

Sherlock surveys the room, his eyes bob rapidly, searching for wrinkles in the wall, he strokes over the wallpaper with his free arm. He keeps his observations for himself, but maybe he doesn’t see anything at all. The water is clear but at the same time incredibly black. John can’t feel his legs which are under water completely now. He can’t make out the ground he is standing on. He moves his toes inside of his shoes but doesn’t feel it. His wrist hurts.

“Can you open it?” John asks. Sherlock gives the handcuff a tug, drawing John nearer, observing the closing mechanism and the links in the chain which connects the two iron rings, brushes over the metal, then over John’s wrist, traces the red burning scars, feels for his pulse and finds it, his tapping finger keeps in time with the beating. He looks up. His eyes, black water, see straight trough John, now very close to his face. Sherlock doesn’t breathe.

“No” Sherlock whispers, only after a few seconds it becomes clear to John that it is the answer to his question, Sherlock still fixedly watches him, right through him, in his head he probably combines possibilities. The water is up to his collarbone, he shivers.

Sherlock raises his free hand, at first John believes he wants to punch him, jerks, but then Sherlock blindfolds him with his hand, gets even closer, curls touch his forehead, resting there. Sherlocks fingers are cold. Silence. John doesn’t dare to move, waiting for something to happen, the hand lies cool on his face, Sherlock doesn’t speak nor breathe nor does anything at all.

But suddenly, when the silence is just beginning to hiss in Johns ears and the darkness is growing behind closed lids, a heavy hitch moves through his arm, the handcuff cuts deep into John’s flesh, Sherlocks free hand is pulled off Johns eyes, his body is tossed backwards into the water, creating waves, instantly sinking into the darkness. Brown curls frame a pale face, right under the surface. Sherlocks disembodied hand leaves bloody streaks; they swirl around the bright face before it vanishes into the deep. The handcuff dangles useless around John’s wrist, he is free, blood pulses out of the long cut across his artery, he tries to press a hand on it, but red liquid gushes through his fingers.

The water is rising; John squeezes himself against the wall, feels the cold right up to his chin, drifts right under the ceiling and then sinks. Shrouded by a red sea he runs out of breathe.

 

When he wakes up he is lying on the floor besides his bed, face down on the cool planks. It is eight weeks after Sherlocks fall. Tomorrow he will meet Julie. After that he won’t have these dreams again for quite a while.

 

_____

 

John opens his eyes and believes his terminal breath would fill his lungs with water. The bedroom is warm, stuffy, the blanket adheres to his skin. John turns his head, realizes it was a dream, sees Julie. Her eyes are open, she watches him, says nothing.

Category Two. The first time after almost three years. Because he saw Sherlock in the crowd.

She won’t understand.

 

_____

 

Lestrade looks concerned. Of course. It’s almost three years ago since Sherlock was buried and it wasn’t that simple for anyone, even for him, but he thought, it was over. He thought John has come to rest. All the blowups, the disappearing for days, the missed appointments with his therapist. Julie has pulled him out of his misery, so it seemed.

Strangely enough John is now standing in front of him, claiming he has seen Sherlock. It’s not so much the impossibility of this statement. A lot more worries him that John never said something like that before. Not in the darkest hour, not when the memory was still fresh. He has skipped the phase of denial and went straight to rage which turned to pure grief, after which he, with Julies help, drifted into some kind of ease.

Lestrade gets anxious. He just doesn’t know which one he fears the most; John losing his mind or John telling the truth.

“When?” he asks, calm, considerate. He takes a peek at Donovan who looks strangely pale and only gives a weak nod.

“Four days ago, Saturday, late afternoon in the city centre, in the crowd. And before someone is asking, of course I am sure it was him, bloody hell, I recognise him.”

Lestrades crosses his arms. Nods slightly.

“John, I don’t know what to do right now. To review this old case, start a search operation? You know quite well that’s impossible. And I think...” he clears his throat, “Don’t you think it would be better to let bygones be bygones?”

John slouches his shoulders. Of course, he thinks, of course it would be better to ignore it. There are so many explanations, so many possibilities that are much more plausible, and one of them is probably the right one. But how should he forget? The dreams have returned, Category Two. He can live with the nightmares about war, but not with that kind.

“You’re most likely right, Greg”, John forces himself to a false smile but isn’t successful, impossible to fool a friend with that.

“What about Julie? Did you tell her?”

John sighs. Sure he did. They discussed the rest of the night, serious at first, logical. But then Julie got aggressive, collected blames, invented arguments which didn’t make any sense. Called him irrational, crazy. Even obsessed, if he remembers right.

“What do you think?” John shrugs, cops a look at Donovan. Then he turns around and leaves the room without farewell.

 

______

 

“Then how could I have missed that one detail?” Sherlock asks. The shot. The fall. Everything repeats itself, down to the last detail. John casts up his eyes, his hand pressing down on the scar on his shoulder. For a few seconds he brings the pain of the dream along to reality, realizing late where and when he actually is. Julie next to him is asleep, with her back turned on him, her hair tided back, some streaks loose. John sits up, inhales the warm air, it’s too stuffy, his lung adheres with hot oxygen, he coughs quietly. The memory of the dream is fresh in mind, pictures flickering in front of his closed eyelids.

John stands up, in dimness he slips into some clothes, in the narrow corridor he puts on his boots and grabs his coat while leaving the flat.

The nights in London are just insignificantly less loud and intrusive than the days, the murmur and rushing, created by thousands of voices, is just replaced by flaring lights and shining signs. John doesn’t head for the city centre, to overwhelming would the brightness and the pulsation of the metropolis be at this time of day. He needs silence, cold clear air in his lungs, maybe the burning in his throat, the pain in his chest. On his way to the nearby park he starts to limp again, he persuades himself that it is just his imagination. He blames the chill and knows better.

The park lies under a thin layer of snow, the silence is eerie, sometimes a shout or the sound of a police siren rolls over the treetops. The rest is absorbed by the white mass, John feels like standing in a dead room, his breathe and steps sound muffled. A bench stands waysides, facing a cluster of trees, slender birches and maples. Carved into the bench in narrow letters are the names of a married couple who donated it 20 years ago to the park. _“In memory of our beloved grandchild who is no longer among us. He liked the shapes of the shadows the trees around here casted.”_

John clears the bench, snow sticks to his fingers and melts. He clutches his leg with both hands while sitting down, exhales through clenched teeth, grimaces, pain floods through his body. It’s nothing but psychosomatic, John tries to convince himself, just delusion. He stretches and bends the knee a few times, the pain doesn’t cease, gets hot in his muscles and grows to a steady traction.

The chill creeps under his jacket, he releases his leg, folds his arms around his upper body, keeps the knee stretched, stares between the trees opposite. The faint light reaches just a few inches far, everything behind that lies in the dark.

When John notices Sherlock standing on the left of the bench, he doesn’t even try to look at him, he just lets him stay a silhouette in the corner of his eye. His face becomes hot, he is hyperaware of the pulse in his limbs, says nothing, concentrates on the fringe of his sight field, doesn’t dare to turn his head because he’s afraid to be wrong, to have misinterpreted the shape. But how could he, how could he not recognise the familiar shape of Sherlock Holmes, the slender high figure, dressed in a long dark coat, his posture, how his curls frame his face, the nose, the cheekbones, the chin. How could he, John Watson, possibly be wrong in that case?

“You know the pain isn’t real.” Sherlocks voice is much deeper than he remembered, snow and darkness are making it hollow.

“Oh really?” John asks, it’s supposed to sound cutting. It is supposed to contain the rage and grief of the last three years, supposed to sound reproaching and relieved at the same time, should convey his disappointment. He wants to appear hurt, but wants to offend too. He just wants to free himself from all these emotions, finally.

Instead it sounds weary, exhausted. As if he already talked and discussed and fought the whole night, he sinks down feebly. He just doesn’t have the energy for that conversation, he realizes. His leg convulses for a few seconds, his left hand darts reflexively, grabs the thigh, squeezes it and massages the hardened muscle. In the corner of his eyes he believes to see Sherlock facing him now. The spasmodic aches dissolve, John sighs, his grip loosens, his hand lies limply on his thigh. He tries to brace himself for what will follow. The explanation. He will find it difficult to swallow, won’t have the chance to scrutinize, just has to listen. He doesn’t want to make this conversation. Actually. John watches his left hand which rests on his leg. He suddenly sees the red line. The scar.

His heart trembles. His whole body convulses, his eyes widen. He slowly turns his hands around, palms facing up, looks at the wrist, spots the long red scar right across his artery. Strokes it with his other hand, fresh wound edges, they burn a bit when touched.

“Do you know the answer?” Sherlocks voice drones in his ears, impossible to tell if it is actually coming from the figure on his left side. John decides to turn around, slowly, inch by inch. The fingers on his pulse feel the first drops of blood seep out of the gash. With his hand around his wrist he tries to staunch the wound. He looks top left, stares at Sherlock, it’s really him, standing there, glancing down at him. No scarf this time, open coat, a shirt beneath which seems grey in the dim light. John’s wrist hurts, blood drops down to the snow, filling ice crystals with red.

Sherlock stands still, his face nothing more than a vague shadow, eyeless, arms hanging loosely on his side. The right hand’s missing. The handcuff lies useless in the snow.

 

_____

 

 

“John! What the bloody hell?”

Blinking disorientation. He lies face down on the ground, in front of him a pair of white socks. John frowns, lifts his head a bit, tries to sit up. He’s in the corridor right now, his jacket rests besides him and he’s still wearing his boots. Julie stands above him, mouth partly opened as if she still searches for proper words. What happened? John can’t remember a thing.

Then suddenly everything returns. The park, snow, the bench, Sherlock. He franticly shoves back his sleeve, stares at his wrist, touches it and finds nothing, no unevenness, no pale or red scar, no blood.

Julie shakes her head, her mouth still open, unsaid words filling up the corridor. Finally she turns around, disappears into the kitchen, mumbling. John gazes at his boots, the small pool that formed under them, the cool jacket lying next to him on the floor. He doesn’t need Sherlocks deduction skills to come to the conclusion that he indeed went out last night. Maybe he really visited the park. Or probably just a pub where he tried to forget his nocturnal nightmare with the help of alcohol.

John leans himself back against the wall, rubs his eyes, breathes hard. He sees Sherlock in front of him, feels the blood seep through his fingers, smells the snow. It all seemed real, authentic. He closes his eyes, begins to shiver, then sobs. His body is shaking, convulses again, his leg twists, he ignores it, puts his head back, scrubs his face and swallows hard. His throat is burning, feels tight, pressure in his chest, unable to get enough oxygen, sucks it in reflexively, coughs and almost throws up. John concentrates, bends forward a bit, hands on the ground, makes himself count his breath. A technique he learned in the army.

The tremor abates, his muscles loosen, he finds his breathing rhythm again. He keeps sitting there like that for while, bent-forward, palms pressed on the floor, until he can’t feel the heartbeat in his throat anymore.

When he gets up shakily and trudges into the kitchen he realizes that Julie is gone. She just went past him and left the flat.

 

_____

 

The flat is even warmer than usual, it smells of broccoli and mashed potatoes which are served in small bowls. Between these stands the white boring saucier.

John, Julie, her parents. They are uncomplicated, no arbitrary mother-in-law who wants to make his life a living hell, no overprotective father who always tells the same stories which are not actually funny. She is a former nurse, like mother like daughter, and helps out in a retirement home. He is a librarian and well-read. It’s the third time John meets the both of them but he just can’t memorize their names.

“Well John, how’s it going in the hospital?” the father asks while he utters a piece of broccoli.

“Dear please, not during dinner!” The mother smiles apologetic, Julie chuckles.

John doesn’t talk much this evening, listens only with half an ear when Julie speaks about her new job, in return her parents give a report about Julie’s younger sister who is studying abroad. The family laughs a lot, John just beats the devil’s tattoo in his wine glass. 

‘Do you know the answer, John?’ He remembers the night on the bench and still isn’t sure if it really happened at all. That one question. It took him long until he realized that it is linked to the sentence from the other dream. The detail which Sherlock missed. What detail, John thinks, what’s his point? He knits his brow.

“...a wonderful idea!” Julie elbows him, John looks up, the parents watch him eager.

“Oh, I’m sorry”, he fakes a half-hearted smile, the parents fall for it.

“Cake, John, at noon tomorrow, how about it? There is this gorgeous café my friend Alice told me about.”

“We’re not leaving until tomorrow evening, my dear” her mother says.

“They’re said to have outstanding Sacher cake...”

“No” John tosses in. Julie stops, turns her head, gazes at him.

“No?” she repeats as if John did not spoke clearly enough.

“The anniversary, it’s tomorrow. I need to visit the grave.” Definite. No ‘Maybe’ or ‘Let’s see’, it’s absolutely certain.

The father watches curiously, Julie screws up her nose, little wrinkles form on the bridge, her cheeks, already slightly red from wine, blush even more.

“John, is that really necessary? I mean, is it that important?”

“Important?” John is more spitting it out than saying it.  He looks baffled. “Of course it’s important!” Now he’s getting a bit loader then planned. “He was my friend, for Christ’s sake! What on earth then could possibly be more important?”

“But my parents are here for just one day. It won’t kill him if you visit him the day after tomorrow!”

John gasps for air. “He deserves a visit of his grave on his anniversary.”

The parents look nervous, their eyes bob.

“You should listen to yourself! You think he deserves it? He is dead, John, and no matter how hard you wish for him to come back, he won’t. And now stop mourning after this man and stop making up stories like a little child about his return!”

John springs to his feet, his chair tilts over, cracks on the floor. He bangs his fist on the table, the filled glass of wine splashes over, Julies mother winces. The father sits straight, he looks like saying something but stays silent, just watches John grabbing the saucier and toss it to the ground with an infuriated yell. There it shatters into hundreds of boring simple white pieces and spreads brown gravy like blood all over the wooden floor.

 

_____

 

Sherlock had an eye for details. He would often blame the people around him for seeing but not observing. Each trifle, each inanity normal people would simply oversee, made sense for Sherlock, appertained to a bigger puzzle and was part of a solution. In his head networks stretched, connections were made, photos, quotes and sounds were catalogued in his memory. John soon stopped imagining what it was like in Sherlocks brain. It had to be noisy and bothersome, always on the spot, never silent, always working. Sherlock couldn’t look at something without deducing, interpreting. Between the cases his brain screamed for a task, longed for labour, for distraction. More than once John stopped Sherlock from fighting the never-ending call and drone of his own head with certain medicine.

But Sherlock wasn’t here right now. John would have to unravel that mystery by himself. He gets the feeling it all adds up to it. The right answer, the solution. Maybe everything gets better then. No more Category Two. No more hallucinations, no more uncertainty, the inability to tell reality and delusion apart.

That detail, John thinks, which detail could Sherlock, the great Sherlock Holmes, have missed? When John closes his eyes he sees him right in front of him. The pale face, the high cheekbones, eyes like crystal, cut, they see through everything. Dark curls. Hands pressed together, placed under his chin, thinking. Tight shirt, the upper buttons undone, long slender legs in dark suit trousers.

How was he, John Watson, supposed to solve a riddle Sherlock Holmes posed him?

 

_____

 

The cab stops right at the front door.  Stepping off a car in front of 221 Baker Street feels familiar, doesn’t feel wrong in any way. John looks up to the building, observes every window, then the sunblind of the small cafe next to 221. Nothing changed, as if no second has passed.

John approaches the door, fishes the key out of his pocket. He still owns one, Mrs Hudson insisted on it. No one took the flat so far anyway. Mycroft rented it, he refers to it as an easy way of storing Sherlocks possession, but John believes there’s more behind it. 221b is everything there is left from Sherlock Holmes.

 The key fits in the lock, John is careful and quiet, he feels like a burglar. He hopes he won’t get caught by Mrs Hudson. Of course they’ve met a few times after Sherlocks death, in cafés or restaurants, just recently on the graveyard on Sherlocks anniversary. But never in 221b.

When John moves upstairs he has to smile while his feet automatically avoid the planks which make the stairs creak. Funny what his head won’t forget.

John’s plan is simple. He needs Sherlocks notebooks. His head is no library, no mind palace in which he can recall any needed information. He requires material. The notebooks are packed in a black box in the living room. John put them away by his own hands. He never looked into one of them.

The moment John stands in front of the milk glass door he hesitates. His finger tips are tingling, his heart’s racing. Just a few feet, he thinks, it really isn’t very far. Get in, take the box, leave again. He pushes the door open; Sherlock is already waiting for him.

“The wife is a gardener” he says at that moment and goes on deducing.  John stands in the door frame, stares at Sherlocks back, then at the glassless window behind him. He breathes in deeply, wants to move his legs but they’re stone still, connected to the ground, impossible to move one muscle. His gaze rests on the slender figure, in front of Johns mouth the first white clouds form, his finger tips are getting numb, he tries to move, closes his eyes for a second and counts his breathes.

“Three scratches on the upper arm, much too collateral to be a coincidence, therefore induced.” John counts the tenth inhaling, his legs break away from the floor, he opens his eyes. Sherlock is now right beneath him, the zoom. Then the weapon, John gazes into the muzzle. It’s cold around him, he hears the air crackling, waits for the shot. “Then how could I have missed that one detail?” The bullet hits him right between his eyes and throws him backwards.

Moments later he opens his eyes wide, he is lying on the ground, next to the sofa, he skims over the carpet up to the black box. He struggles to his feet, doesn’t dare to look at the windowsill, feels a light breeze but can’t make out any frost on the items in the room. Stooped he sneaks to the case, lifts the cover, looks into it and registers the notebooks. Relieved he shuts the box again, grabs it and turns around. His gaze glides to the window where Sherlock is sitting again, this time he can make out his face. He’s vacantly watching outside, the declining sun gives his face an almost natural colour. His lips move mechanically, speaking about lost rings and identical twins.

John forces himself to avert his gaze, the box hugged to his body he flees the flat, whipped down the stairs, yanks the door open and dashes to the edge of the pavement, waving for a cab. He doesn’t look back.

 

_____

 

“Mycroft reported about you visiting the flat, John?”

Lestrade leans in the door frame to the kitchen. John is sitting at the table, the notebooks scattered in front of him; with yellow stickers he numbered and dated them all. There’s no point in answering Lestrade, the evidence speaks against him, there probably is also one in form of a DVD, video shots from secret cameras; you can most certainly see a John Watson entering 221 Baker Street carefully and leaving it again in panic.

“I needed something. I still got a key so I didn’t break in.” He doesn’t look up, marks a sentence in the notebook with a red marker.

Lestrade sighs. He clumsily puts his hands in his pockets.

“Do I have to be worried?” A strange question. John doesn’t know if to answer it, if it wasn’t rhetorical. He decides on shaking his head.

“Everything’s under control” he adds because he thinks that’s required. Still no look at Lestrade, who stands in the door for a while, nervously fumbling his suit trousers and finally decides to go.

“Just...don’t be silly, do you hear me, John?” he says, already turned around to leave. “And greet Julie.”

“She doesn’t live here anymore” John mumbles, Lestrades eyes widen, he opens his mouth, ready to speak, but then changes his mind and wards off. He’s closing the door as quiet as he can.

 

_____

 

His eyes are burning, the bedside lamp lights the bed and the scattered notebooks. John read them all, understood few. Sherlocks kind of taking notes seems to be just like his ability of making deduction; impossible to reconstruct. Here and there John marked single sentences which seemed important reading it the first time, but re-reading them they appear as cryptic and fragmentary as the rest.

John puts the notebook down, rubs his eyes, covers the face with his palms, inhales deeply. He looks to his right at the side table on which a digital clock is placed; the numbers persist in saying it’s already half past three in the morning.

John averts his gaze and notices the person sitting next to him on the other side of the bed. Sherlock is wearing his coat, looks at the notebooks, seems to recognise them. A smile on his lips.

“You try to solve the puzzle, John. Interesting.”

John sighs, copes with his hallucination better than before, blames the tiredness. He suddenly notes the handcuff around his left wrist, ignores it, takes the notebook with the free hand.

“Do you know the answer, John?” Sherlock watches him curiously, leans forward, looks into the book, smiles.

“Stop making fun of me.”

“At which passage are you?”

John leafs through the pages, tries to assemble keywords, to match them. He fails.

“Here’s something about a shoe”, John says clueless, turning the pages again, suddenly finds a name. “Ah, here it is. John Powers. The case with the bomber.”

“Carl.”

“Who?”

“Carl Powers. The boy was called Carl.”

John stares at Sherlock who grins, very insolent of a hallucination. John turns his head, facing forward. The door is missing. He doesn’t have to turn around to know that the same goes for the windows. Category Two.

Carl Powers. John looks at the notebook. It clearly says John Powers there, some paragraphs later again. He marks the names green, thinks. Why should Sherlock misspell the name, how could he make such a mistake?

“You’re getting there” Sherlock says, pulls at the handcuff, points at the ground. “But you should hurry up a bit.”

Water springs out of the gaps between the planks. It staggers John for a second, then he recovers, takes another notebook. A study in pink. He identified this case before. He searches for names, comes upon three. Different surnames, same forename. John. He flips pages, marks words, takes yet another book, finding the name there too.

His name. John looks up. The water slops over the edge of the bed, the notebooks become saturated with liquid, trundling over the rising surface. Sherlock is sitting next to him, moved even closer to his side, his cuffed hand right beside Johns, already under the surface, just a blurring shade; it looks like their hands lie on top of each other, but John can’t feel it anymore.

“How could I have missed that one detail?” Sherlock now very close, bend-forward, the water up to his chest. The notebooks sink into the darkness. Coldness streams through John, numbness. His name, again and again. Sherlocks notes are filled with it, his notes resemble his thoughts, therefore Sherlocks thoughts are...

He turns his head. Only inches separate their faces. Sherlock already deduced that John knows the truth. He solved the riddle. Water swirls around his collarbone.

“It’s me”, John says silently, Sherlock nods. “I am the detail.”

He chokes on cold liquid but doesn’t averts his gaze, stares at Sherlock, doubting. Water all around his face, everything goes numb, he blinks. Sherlock struggles lifting his free arm, John already got to know that part, he gets blindfolded by Sherlocks hand. John opens his mouth, mutters a voiceless _Sherlock_ into the liquid. Sherlock leans forward the missing inches, wet curls touch John’s forehead, skin on skin, Sherlocks forehead rests on his own. Water all around them, absolute silence under the surface. Sherlocks hands get’s drawn away, John expects seeing Sherlocks figure disappearing into the darkness and bloody streaks following him. But he’s still there, their hands still cuffed together, they’re linked. Johns chest burns, he fights the urge to breathe in, his eyes are getting heavy, his thoughts are getting slow. Fog in the corner of his eyes.

Sherlock takes John by the hand. John understands the signal, nods, a lazy motion. Together they breathe in the cold and sink into the depth of an icy sea.

 

_____

 

One week later John is sure about the dreams not returning. No Category Two for the last six nights, no delusion, no hallucination. John sorts the notebooks into the black box and shuts the lid carefully.

The cab is driving through a jammed city centre. John likes the view of the crowd. London, a vivid, colourful city. So many people, everyone with their own history, past, wishes and dreams. They’re all individuals and complete strangers. Sherlock would give all of them a personality, could tell their sleeping habits by the way they’re walking and the last meal based on the colour of their shirts. For Sherlocks head such a crowd must be pure horror. Or paradise.

John looks out the window, people cluster, bags in their hands and mobiles right at their ears. In a crowd like that he saw Sherlock again after almost three years. By the meantime he knows that it was only his imagination. But he still wonders. This one hallucination fits none of the two dreams, won’t match. He shakes his head.

221 Baker Street looks peaceful. John watches out for cameras, he can’t help himself waving in all directions, a _Hello_ to Mycroft. This time he doesn’t hesitate opening the door, doesn’t avoid the noisy steps. He thinks about visiting Mrs Hudson on his way back.

He opens the living room door, warmth greets him, it smells sweet of biscuits and boiling water. When looking up his heart stops. Sitting on the windowsill there is Sherlock, watching London’s streets. John drops the black box, the cover opens, notebooks scatter across the floor. His eyes widen, his pulse races, he feels the beating in his throat and at his wrists.

Sherlock turns around, sees John standing in the door frame, takes a quick look at the scattered notebooks, recognises the green marked words, the names, more precisely the one name. Makes links. Combines. Deduces. Then looks up again. Behind him John can see streaks and dust on the window glass. Everything is different.

“This particular Saturday, in the city. It was really you.” It’s no question; it’s a statement which took all his strength he could find in his body. Sherlock hesitates, and then nods.

“Give me time and I explain everything to you” he begs, but John just lifts his hand, cuts him short. There’s a slight tremor in his fingers. The pulse is still heavy in his limbs. It feels like being alive. Sherlock. John. A smile.

“You have all the time in the world, Sherlock. But first I really like to have my bloody tea."

 

 


End file.
